As mentioned on Instagram, I've been a regular listener on Julie Parker's The Priestess Podcast for quite some time. She curates beautiful, relatable content on mysticism, alternative healing modalities, the Divine Feminine, conscious business, and so many other topics that I care deeply about. It was an IMMENSE honour to be interviewed by Julie on shamanism, plant spirit medicine, and my work here at Ceremonie. We had such a fun time chatting (including my interpretation of how Adam and Eve from the biblical story of Genesis is rooted in shamanic expression, my childhood, and even the unusual name for my favourite doll), that I completely lost track of time!

Many have asked me this question, or how did I choose to be involved with plant spirit medicine. As someone who has remained out of the public's eye, and has stayed quietly behind the Ceremonie brand, I am also beginning to become more visible, adding a distinct personal element to my work that didn't exist before. We learn so much from stories, including our own, and so I share it here:

It's has been a long journey that involves evolving through archetypes to develop an ever-increasing understanding of myself and the worlds (seen and unseen) around me. I come from a home where my mother is a devout evangelical Christian and my father, an equally devout atheist. The paradigm I was raised in was black and white - be it if it was rooted in science and the rational, or religious conditioning and tenets. Deep down, I had always connected with spirits and mysticism - my first friends, as a young child, were the great Cedar tree spirits - Grandma Tree and Grandpa Tree, as I had called them (and still do). I also spoke to fruits and vegetables (I even named a doll Celery). The rational world crept in, pressing me and I naturally lost touch with these allies for some time and became well versed and articulate in more widely-accepted world views. It can be easy to look back at those times as conforming, asleep, or a victim of patriarchy, but I also see those decades as preparatory, as many myths and archetypes that exist in Judeo-Christian were taken from older, pagan practices. In my own story, I simply learned them in chronologically reversed order, as many people today do.

After I gave birth to my first son, the Wild Woman stirred within. Some call her Lilith, some Kali, some gave her the generic name of Witch. I called her Jezebel. She frightened me. She asked all the right questions and didn't care that she didn't have a tidy answer. She was raw, brave, wildly intelligent, could smell lies from miles away, was fiercely loyal to her loved ones, and I was scared to death to even entertain a cup of tea with her. I was secretly afraid that she would somehow seduce some sense into me and I would lose full control of who I am. I knew that she, as the Destroyer, would kill me.

Simultaneously, my husband and I were wanting a second child, but had difficulty conceiving and keeping the pregnancies. The timing wasn't right.

The pangs for the shadow and unknown, like contractions, only became stronger. I began experiencing rapidly increasing manifestations of clair-olfaction (sometimes also known as clair sentience), the ability to smell things that aren't physically there, and then associating them with distinct messages from the spirit world. And it was a dark walk in the desert, for I had no teacher in the form of books or workshops. I searched for teachers who have this gift, but none came on my path. So I had no choice but to listen to Jezebel. She said spend time outdoors everyday. She said look for omens and symbols. She told me about Tarot, and I committed to learning the Tarot language, a visual tongue through which spirit allies can speak to me with clarity and precision. By then, we had stopped attending church, and were promptly ostracized for doing so. We kept two couple friends from that network of well over a hundred. They were the only ones who wanted to remain in our lives. (I later released this disappointment and remarkably, I am filled with so much love - even as I write this portion of my story). And so in many ways, certain things died within me - limiting, outworn beliefs, victimhood, the need to be perfect, and like a snake, I shed and emerged. I begun to understand that the Wild Woman is my greatest protector, advocator, and mother.

Fast forward a bit and I became pregnant again. At week 15, I began hemorrhaging, which only stopped when I reclined in bed. The first day of the bleeding, I heard the doorbell ring. When I opened the door, no one was there, but when I looked up, a large Great Blue Heron flew across me and into the expansive sky. I knew that the baby would live, despite any complications. The midwife sent me for a few medical tests and science couldn't tell me why it was happening. The instruction was to remain in bed rest until the baby reached full term.

I am a very active person, and to ask me to lie in bed for two days with the flu is a monumental task as it is. To be on bed rest for over 5 months was a demand that challenged me in a way that I had never experienced. The idea of being removed from the physical world was enormously difficult for a type A person like me to 'endure', though by week 2, I had sufficiently wrestled with this internally, that I finally said, "Oh, all right!!!! I'll start meditating, again." So meditating I began - longer and longer sessions each day. I would break them up with an online course on aromatics and skin (essential oils, plant extracts, and other natural compounds in the context of skincare), but I did meditate roughly for 5 hours a day on bed rest. It was an immensely productive and transformative use of time. I now see this as the Universe's gift to me.

One day, during a meditation, I traveled somewhere and met some talking creatures. They said some interesting and truthful things. When I came out of the trance, I knew that something remarkable had happened. I met ancient, powerful friends. I didn't yet possess the language, but I had journeyed to the Lower World and spoke with some spirit allies. It was my first shamanic experience, and though I tried, I didn't know how to return to that realm.

My second son, Kyo, was born in the spring of 2015. The name 'Kyo' means synergy. Back on my feet and enjoying mothering my newborn and 7 year old, I had banked so much energy while off my feet, that I had the momentum to create something that can be best summarized by the Ace of Wands coupled with the Queen (Mother) of Pentacles. I created a toning oil to help rid water retention and toxins from being immobile for so long, and the moms around me noticed, and asked if they could buy bottles to use it as cellulite oil for themselves. And so Ceremonie was born (then called Trimaran Botanicals, renamed last year). I would begin working with essential oils and enter into a conscious trance and basically was channeling their energies and personalities, and coupled it with my own trained knowledge, began formulating. It was truly alchemical. In the certified aromatherapy world, blends are termed 'synergy'. It is wondrous how Kyo helped me birth this.

While this was happening, I asked the Universe, almost as a joke (because I didn't believe it would happen), for a shaman to show up in my life to teach me. I knew it was highly unrealistic to travel extensively to Peru with two babes (and a mortgage) in tow, so I had asked Jezebel to send someone here in greater Vancouver where I live. And she did, one week later. My formal teacher was a female shamanic practitioner, named Leona De Lang Boom. She is a second generation modern shamanic practitioner. She began when she was 18 years old, and her mother still practises it. Their specialty is in past life work and have taught me how to work with psychopomps (a spirit/creature/angels that are travel companions to afterlife as well as former lives). What's absolutely incredible is when I met mine for the first time, I fell so in love with him. He's a red crown crane, and is adorable yet strong. I didn't know it at the time, but later learned that many psychopomps are cranes.

Ceremonie began as a clean beauty label that is focused on shamanic skin and aura care. I make the products in ritual (a blend of trance work, shamanism, hedgewitch magick, crystal therapy and moon cycles). About a year ago, I also began offering Shamanic Beauty Sessions, which are shamanic readings in the context of beauty, as well as general shamanic readings. My greatest passion, though, are my conversations (online and offline) with my clients and other members in my tribe. This sisterhood of women (mostly women, but some men, as well), ignites me to never compromise on my deepest truth, to love myself with as much vigour as a Mother Wolf, and to see the incorruptible good in others (AND THEN TELL THEM!!!). In fact, later this week, I will be offering my first spirituality/plant spirit medicine workshop series at Nectar Juicery (a wellness hub here in Vancouver, Canada), titled 'Walking The Fragrant Path: Integrating Essential Oils with Crystals, Chakras, Mantras and More'. What a wild ride, this gift called life, stranger than fiction, and wondrously beautiful.

In winter, the thickest feeling of stillness surrounds us. In a single moment we are struck by the abyss that unfurls on the horizon. The whole world is holding its breath. Lessons don’t come only in moments of fertile beauty, in the tingle of sunshine’s sweet kiss or with the adrenal prick of hairs that engulf our flesh when we stand on a cliff edge, faces borne against the wind.

Change comes in moments of solitude, when you bury yourself in the bosom of Mother Earth, relentless in the pursuit of no clear direction. Your every step squelches in the muddy underfoot that glues you to forest floor and ice chaps your lips, freezing your breath and numbing your core.

We drift like ice sheets as we walk under the treetops’ thinning veil, which falls like a tapestry, mottled and merciless to the blowing gales. Leaves may tumble from great heights, but on the ground they become a rolling blanket worn on the shoulders of earth’s frosted floor. Let the sky cry! Let the world overflow in its tears and strip as bare as the branches while you swim in the current.

In these moments we gain clarity and connection; our identity changes at the influx. This is our opportunity for recollection and balance. Only with the darkness can we appreciate the light and only then can we appreciate its beauty.

The finite gives birth to infinite worlds in the bloom and break of growth and rebirth. We are spirits carried by the wind, picked up as soil and seed and carried across the plains in search of ourselves. It’s a change that happened because we chose to move towards it.

When left to its own majesty, Mother Earth offers everything that we need.

The darkness is cabin feverAnd we get restless in the nightIn this ever-stretching blacknessWe swallow our sight

We brace the cold with brittle bonesWe gather in the stillRelease all that empties usSip what makes us full

We shed our skin like crumbled leavesSpiked umbrellas to the skyWinter is our secrecySeek with smoke-stung eyes

The trees are shaved to skeletonsOur bodies like cocoonsAn endless offering of frequenciesPared of all its bloom

Our breath bellows to the celestialAs we plead and redefineWe are great seeds buried in the briskWith pockets full of moonshine

Words by Alena Walker, writer, fashion editor, and stylist born in rural Northern Ireland. A cultivator of local and international experiences, nature draws Alena close and allows her to tell stories through photography, paint, poetry, and prose. As a natural roamer and soulful artist, Alena describes her work as inviting consciousness and exceeding boundaries, "...where conscious consumption and environmental activism form the bedrock of my focus. I work only with ethical designers and I'm trying to make an impact on the world by creating consciously."

We will be offering another story from our guest contributor next month! For more information on plant spirit medicine, shamanic beauty and aura care, and all things shamanic, vibrational, and witchy, connect with us via Instagram or Facebook. Wishing all a joyful Yule filled with ritual, love, insight, and joy.

Yule may be the most magickal time of the year. The divine Crone rules the Earth and invites the people of the land to honour and appreciate the darkness of Winter and wildness, and to hold space for mystery and the transformations that will soon emerge in the Spring. In Shamanic cultures, the medicine woman/man may wear antlers to invoke the forest deities or the respective animal totem, insuring a season of abundance and peace for the upcoming year. In modern times, we may no longer belong to a coven or have a Shaman near us, but we can clear debris, set intentions, and manifest our dreams through private practice knowing when we tend to ourselves, we are also raising the collective vibration.

We may have forgotten how to live with the Earth's natural ebb and flow of seasons, but we can consciously choose to quiet ourselves this winter season, dim the lights (physically and metaphorically), and hibernate. We can choose to live simpler, to choose a holiday season that may look less materially, but be far richer in all other measurements. We can spend time letting our gardens rest, sweep the dust that deludes us, and dare to give permission to wear the sense of uncontainable beauty that lives in us all. Can we be brave enough to create an inner monastery so we can finally face and learn from our demons? This is the season of Yule. It is the season of darkness that is brighter than any light we are familiar with. The way there is Death; death of our egos, death to our agendas, death to our defaulted, desensitized selves. We enter this sacred place of Mid Winter, by claiming the wild women and wild men, light workers, witches and Shamans that is our natural birth right.

As a way to support your practice, CEREMONIE is now offering 20% OFF our entire shamanic skin + aura care collection until 27, 2017. Enter promo code WINTERSOLSTICE.

"Gather we as old year endstogether here with knowing friendsas the New Year passes byopen up our magic eyes.

Ancient mother of Midwinter,watcher over life and death,the one who rebirths the world,be with us on this longest night!See us through the dark hoursand stand with usas dawn births the promise of new life.So mote it be!" -- Susan Peznecker

Stay free,Mimi Youngfounder + shamanic practitioner

Please note that orders placed after December 5 will be fulfilled the week of January 2, 2017.

Samhain (pronounced as 'sow-in'), is originally a Gaelic pagan festival marking the end of the harvest season (summer) and beginning of the 'darker half' of the year (winter). It is traditionally celebrated from sunset on October 31, and is also known as the start of the new year for pagans. The veil between this physical reality and other realities are thinnest during Samhain. For this reason, witches, shamans, seers, prophets, medicine people, and the like conventionally seek to connect with ancestors, plant spirits, power animals, angels, and otherworldly beings. Though much of what is understood and practiced of this immensely spiritual and powerful season is lost to the masses (the reasons for this can be discussed in another blog post), I'd like to share a few points about Samhain that is still relevant for those who seek spiritual (and practical) meaning today.

1. The weeks leading up to October 31 is a prime time to discern what it is that you would like to have clarity on, resolve, or experience significant change. On the Samhain Sabbat, via shamanic or Wiccan ritual, prayer or even quiet visualization, set your intention. Invite your ancestors, angels, animal or plant totems to assist in manifesting the intention. Remember, magic is all about intention.

2. As a general Samhain practise, use this time to connect with your spirit allies. Say hello to them. Thank them for being with you. Use this opportunity to also say goodbye to energies and themes that no longer serve you. Commit to making choices that support your highest and best.

3. Samhain involves two key themes - to acknowledge and appreciate the year's work and abundance, and to allow what is necessary in the Earth and one's life to pass onto another form, traditionally symbolized as death (as the Death card in the Tarot tradition). To give oneself the permission to acknowledge death in one way or another is immensely empowering, nourishing, and liberating. Death is indispensable in the cycle of life. Rebirth is the natural outcome. As the saying goes, the Tomb becomes the Womb.

4. The Samhain Sabbat is when God is within the Goddess (the two are united) in the Underworld. Both archetypically romantic and neutralizing (as in the balancing of Yin and Yang), consider what you would like to give tenderness to or balancing in your life. To further the symbols of Crone and Hunter reigning together, what have you mastered or would like to master?

5. Use this time to physically and spiritually clean your home and possessions. Declutter, smudge, chant, and anoint. Physical manifesting is optimized when thoughtful actions are consistently taken and physical space welcomes it.

6. Honour your holy of holies - your gloriously beautiful body - your personal, sacred temple. Eat and drink gently, bathe in salts and herbs, apply healing facial and body oils, and speak tenderly to yourself no matter what, cast spells, and embark on shamanic journeys (or seek a shamanic practitioner who can do so for you). Start and end the pagan new year with the commitment of self-compassion. Let your highest vibration attract both the purest of deaths and most divine of rebirths.

BEAUTY X SPIRIT GUIDES! We are so excited to announce something exclusive to our Ceremonie tribe for orders made this month of October. Ceremonie will be honouring #samhain - a time when we acknowledge the end of the harvest season and the inauguration of the darker half of the year. In earth-based spirituality, October 31 is also when the veil between this world and the spirit realms becomes the thinnest, making it both a pragmatically optimal time to invite loving spirit allies into your life and your life's work.

For all online orders made during the month of October, we will be making them to order by hand in shamanic ritual (in our usual Ceremonie fashion), and THEN ADDING ONE MORE MAGICAL ELEMENT - we will also be integrating pagan spellwork to divinely charge each and every bottle and jar of skin and aura care with one of your very own personal power animal / plant spirit guide. Bespoke shamanic beauty, indeed.

There is so much fuss on finding a life partner. (In America, there's even a multi-billion dollar industry that is misnamed as a "rite of passage" - aka weddings). Though we have come a long way in understanding and exploring the topic of relationships and relationship formats, I have found that in all circles - monogamous and otherwise - that there is this underlying expectation that someone can or is supposed to make us happier. Yes, we know what psychology and spirituality say: that happiness is found within and that we must never expect anybody (or anybodies) to fulfill the impossible feat of treating us like divinity all the time, nonetheless, we crave unconditional love. THOUGH WE DON'T DARE TO SAY IT, and rather, we find ways to distract us from the stark need through workshops, books, counseling, vacations, overtime hours, materialism, mantra work, and metaphysical healing modalities. As if it's unacceptable to admit that we have an insatiable appetite.

And it is in this burning cold, that I have come to explore this idea, which may be old for many, but it is certainly new for me. Beyond the idea of self love, could it be possible that we are our own highest and most intimate life partner? This is beyond the first and second generations of feminism and eastern faiths - I'm not saying that singleness is the way to enlightment. I'm proposing that despite the sort of defined or undefined relationship(s), what would it look like if we depart from the paradigm of soul mates and life partners as an entity external from ourselves, and take on a different convention - that we are our very own primary soul mate. Naked and alone we enter this world and naked and alone we will depart from it. How would we speak to ourselves, feed ourselves, dress ourselves, teach ourselves, and allow ourselves if we are our own life partner? Would we remind ourselves how special we are? How sexy? How intelligent? How utterly and perfectly imperfect? What would happen to that needy voice within? And the greedy one? How would we respond to light AND shadow? Would we spend the time to really get to know ourselves and woo her? Would we need to protect ourselves if we know that no one can truly harm us? Would our internal, eternal child smile from a sense of tender delight and peaceful security? What would the implications be en masse?

"Until I see another’s behavior with compassion, I have not understood it. This includes myself." -- David Richo

Of all the planetary aspects, it is perhaps Mercury Retrograde that everyone loves to fear and hate. How can we resist, when the havoc-wreaking planet presents the illusion of slowing and moving backwards? Emails aren't sent, deadlines missed, blog posts spontaneously disappearing while it is being written (my computer crashed 6x while writing this), vehicles breaking down, flights canceled, loving words misinterpreted...

So what to do? Reschedule everything these next few weeks? Defiantly charge full steam ahead? Could it mean that we remain our own creators, and should there be hiccups along our journey that the Cosmos is simply reminding us to pay attention to the greater context and to let things flow, as they are cosmically intended? Could it be that rather than shaking our fists at the stars, this is an ideal time to take stock, tend to our existing commitments, pause and hibernate, even? If we all dare to profess that duality doesn't exist, then how can Mercury Retrograde be villainized? Even the plant spirit allies, on a recent Shamanic journey, reminded me that no plant blooms all four seasons long, and to expect it to isn't natural nor sustainable. Perhaps we can take a gentler approach to the stars and ourselves, and as the expectation to live a "constantly productive" pace isn't all that productive, as if life is solely defined by productivity, anyway.

And while I still will be wearing Peridot to soften these next few weeks, should I spill my tea on my laptop, I hope that my response shifts from, "Fuck you, Mercury Retrograde," to "Hello, great Qi, I was multi-tasking again. Thanks for inviting me to take tea with You, alone, without my emails."

Love and light,Mimi xo

To support your skin and spirit during Mercury Retrograde, consider our chakra-balancing body oil, Good Vibes Elixir: Terrain, designed to ground, return your spirit to the present, and promote cosmic trust.

Nothing comes close to the warmth, the richness, and the sheer romance of the rose. There are 250+ species and many thousands more of hybrids of rose. Rose damascena and Rosa centifolia are the two most common varietals for extraction into what we know as rose absolute and rose otto.

In Bulgaria and Turkey, among the fine, artisanal farmers and distillers, the rose blossoms of Rosa damascena bloom mid spring, and are harvested by hand in the time-honoured way, of being nipped just below the calyx. Collection of the flower take place early morning, while the dew is still on the petals. Like fine tea leaf collection, these details affect the beneficial compounds and the subtleties in scent. Roughly 4000 kilograms of rose petals yield 1 kilogram of oil.

Rose distillate (the hydrophilic component) and oil (the lypophic) softens, hydrates, and offers a gentle toning function that helps to strengthen the collagen-elastic network in all skin types, with dry, mature, and sensitive types benefitting the most. Rose also contains vulnerary (cell regenerative) compounds, making it suited to aging, sun-damaged, and skin with broken capillaries. Given that Trimaran Botanicals offers a ceremonial and shamanic experience to beauty, rose is also chosen to support the spirit. Rose, vibrating the highest in energetic frequency in the plant kingdom, is invaluable for assisting in the balance of anxiety, upheaval, shock, resentment, lack of trust, lack of self-love, and other emotional toxicity. Anointing a drop of pure rose otto (rose oil distilled solvent-free) on the sternum (the heart chakra), along with mantra work, can deeply soothe the heartbroken.

Back in December 2015, before Trimaran Botanicals even had an online presence, I had a chance to catch up with Alli Hayes, the brilliant darling behind the local, Vancouver-based indie blog The Wildcard Wins, featuring highlights on art, culture, sex-topics and beyond. With all my discussion about shamanism and vegan beauty, she also wanted some insights about botanical ingredients, particularly essential oils, and how Trimaran Botanicals sources for our handblended, toxin-free, made with mantras, shamanic skincare. Steep a cup of tea and enjoy the read. Happy Sunday.